[Bug 564520] Review Request: frama-c - Framework for source code analysis of C software

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=564520

--- Comment #5 from David A. Wheeler <dwheeler at dwheeler.com> 2010-02-15 13:51:22 EST ---
Regarding the upstream version naming convention... I agree with you, the
upstream naming convention is awful (e.g., "Beryllium").  This is an odd duck,
and I'd like to hear others' comments.

I looked over the Fedora policy, here, on version numbers:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/NamingGuidelines#Package_Version
The policy focuses on the situations where non-numeric version identifiers are
Pre-release packages (e.g., "alpha"), Post-release packages (e.g., "1.3a"),
snapshots, and Jpackage-derived packages.  None of these situations applies. 
In this case, we have a group that gives alphabetic names to versions, and
you'd have to know the periodic table to know which is newer.

We *could* use a YYYYMMDD system, but that is a little awkward.

Translating the element names into their numeric atomic number (number of
protons) isn't a bad idea at all, but I think you should use "0." as the prefix
instead of "1.".  This means that Beryllium would become "0.4".  That way, if
they switch to a more conventional version numbering system in the future, we
can switch to it without using epochs.  In addition, I think you should add the
word "beryllium" to the release name, so that people can easily figure out
which one they have.

I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts on version/release naming.

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